This section will detail the Laban-influenced movement praxis in Fail Better Fragments (FBF), a performance installation at Warwick with the IATL Student Ensemble. The PaR experiments took place in one intensive week in April 2012 and c.60 participants
attended the installation over one day. The scenography is unusual and particularly relevant to this section, so the original design has been included within the
documentation (see Fragments design on CD-Rom). In response to the Endlessness
experiments, we shifted our focus from the closed theatrical/scientific problem to the open playful/experimental question. In this section, I will focus only on Laban’s ‘efforts’ system as an accessible mode of performance experimentation through play. I will apply this system to participatory theatre, and use the notion of the ‘science playground’ that featured in the Fun Palace designs, which emphasized flexibility, freedom of movement and greater agency for the participant. Throughout my analysis I will suggest that these factors create greater permeability25 in performance. I will divide this section into three
primary sub-sections (SPACE, TIME and WEIGHT), with an overview sub-section on FLOW. It will be helpful to recall McCaw’s table of Laban ‘efforts’ here:
Indulging Contending
Space Flexible Direct
Weight Light Strong
Time Sustained Quick
Flow Free Bound
Table 3.2: ‘concept of effort’ (McCaw, 2011: 199)
i. SPACE (Phase 1)
Figure 3.1: FBF (2012)
Our ecological thinking, in literally recycling materials from previous productions as creative stimulus for new work, became a defining feature of this experiment. By choosing to play with the objects we already had in storage, we adopted a new devised approach (for the company), not unlike a writer returning to their abandoned
manuscripts. I will develop this inquiry via the Laban attitude of SPACE (direct or flexible) in relation to our devising method. In these experiments we created liminal performance space out of the archive, and placed production materials in relation to each other. This generated transitional spaces (between one fictional world and another) that became a highly flexible environment for devising with the performers and developing new interactions with participants.
For Laban, flexibility and directness are the measure of movement through space. Flexible (or indirect) movers: ‘apparently swim, circulate and twist most
thoroughly through any possible region of space’ (McCaw, 2011: 226). Direct movers, however: ‘deal very sparingly with their moving space… take careful account of the
extension and expansion of their movements’ (226). In preparing for FBF, the ensemble made clear choices about each role, which then impacted on their construction of
SPACE in performance. For example, each performer had to select two production areas in which to embody a role. This enabled an ensemble of six to play with twelve roles from ten separate dramas.
Hence our experiments with direct and flexible use of SPACE became essential modes of transition between each area. This also enabled the devising methods to oscillate between stable ‘roles’ (direct engagement with specific production areas) and flexible transitions when moving as performers (and, therefore, not ‘in role’) from one area to another. This produced a liminal environment that encouraged the audience to engage as participants. For example, when a performer began to make a transition between characters, they were able to transform flexibly to their next role, adopting a physically nuanced interaction with space. I consider this process permeable as we intended audience experience to be pervaded by character transitions, with the aim that their experiences of SPACE would become saturated by the multiplicity of production areas.
The boundaries between characters and production areas were made deliberately porous and could be altered by the participants through free movement or shifts in focus. Our devising process had led to an understanding that these gaps in the fabric of performance produced dynamic encounters between participants. This increased flexibility in the piece enabled the participants to take a more direct role through
movement. Laban imagines ‘easy movers’ as those who: ‘use a great deal of flexibility and twists in their efforts’ (226). Our participants seemed to enjoy a greater engagement with our installation, which was noticeable through their exploratory movements during the transitions. However, ‘there are others who deal very sparingly with their moving space’ (226), who would use directness as their main mode of participation. These participants were observed to follow the performers’ actions and only divert for material objects that
particularly interested them: ‘as if they had an aversion against the manifold extensions of space’ (226). In order to encourage these participants to engage more fully, we created the character transitions as permeable sequences that required the audience to make personal decisions about SPACE.
The apparent tension between restriction and fluidity in the piece was crucial in relation to use of SPACE. The oscillation between directness and flexibility in the performers’ movement produced a spatial environment that participants could follow. This fluidity was facilitated by the permeability of the design, which connects to a major feature of Price’s vision for the Fun Palace. The reader may deduce from the FBF design (see CD-Rom), that SPACE was differentiated through the installation of various production areas from Fail Better’s archive. This enabled performers to wander in between a series of fictional worlds and devise multiple situations for performance. The eventual collaborative process of re-performing these fragments was completed with each audience when participants chose to make their own pathways through the archive. The indeterminate nature of our rehearsal process, using Laban ‘efforts’ throughout, allowed the piece to be finished in performance through interaction with participants. Each devised sequence was a re-performance of earlier experiments and a new
improvisation with the material environment. I would suggest that the most tangible aspects of these variations concerned the pace of action and the speed of transition, which I will explore through the ‘effort attitude' of TIME.
ii. TIME (Phase 2)
Figure 3.2: FBF (2012)
Our audiences were invited into the installation as participants at one of five half- hour performances over one day. Walking through the ‘Discords pathway’ (Figure 3.2), the participants were drawn into the centre of the Humanities Studio. The ensemble could then transition from the first production area to their primary character areas by moving in a shared ‘effort’ state. For example, in Figure 3.2, the body standing against the wall beyond the end of the pathway moved in a sustained, strong and direct way (Press) in order to draw the participants through the pathway and into the main installation.
Later in the piece, another performer’s slow movement from the ‘Lorca dressing room’ to the ‘Beckett desk space’ (see Figures 3.3 & 3.4) protracted TIME to encourage participants to follow him.
As Laban wrote in 1947: ‘People moving with easy effort seem to be freer than those moving with obviously stressed effort. The latter seem to struggle against
something’ (McCaw 2011: 225). Though Laban was addressing the ‘psychological aspects of effort control’, the following comment on is especially relevant to TIME in FBF: ‘It becomes gradually apparent that one of the main characteristics of effort is the presence or absence of rapidity’ (225). Laban defines this as ‘the struggle’ and ‘a fight against time’. In our experiments, the performers’ movement produced TIME (and SPACE) for participants. This became a tangible element of the FBF performances and can be understood in relation to Laban’s phrase ‘compound of effort’ where: ‘time, or speed, is one of the factors of which the compound of effort is built up’ (Laban in McCaw, 2011: 225). As one feature of FBF was to experiment through play, the potential for the many functions of compound effort that emerged in participant movements was especially telling. Audience feedback indicates temporality was understood in a variety of ways.
For example, protracted slowness compounded both TIME and SPACE attitudes so that participants could immerse themselves in the material archive by creating ‘gaps’ in performance when they could explore the fragments. For example, a performer could slow down TIME in order to pass the digital projection in the Echo and Narcissus area en route to the private desk space in the Diary of a Madman corner.
However, TIME could quicken when rehearsed moments took place within the
production areas, drawing the participants into one shared place. The effect of this was to establish a temporary moment of shared experience out of multiple personal journeys. By exposing the participants to ‘compounds of effort’, ensemble movement would influence the mood of the performance through rapidity or slowness. The effect of this
was to draw together (then rupture) the participants’ flow of movement. In order to more fully understand these compounds, the next Phase considers the ‘effort attitude’ of WEIGHT.
iii. WEIGHT (Phase 3)
Figures 3.3 & 3.4: FBF (2012)
This sub-section demonstrates how heavy (strong) or light ‘compounds of effort’ enabled greater interaction with the material fragments in performance for participants. We wanted a physical permeability to accompany the experience of atmospheric diffusion of SPACE and TIME in the room. The ability of participants to view the piece from multiple locations was an important example of this, as it increased the fluidity of movement and three-dimensional participation. We wanted participants to evolve equal access to the materials in the same ways as the ensemble, so we developed playful strategies for engaging them with physical objects. For example, the quills and lamp in the Diary of a Madman corner (glimpsed in Figure 3.3 through the window) could be
directly observed from a variety of angles and distances. However, the objects on the desks for Rough for Theatre II (in the foreground of Figure 3.3) could be viewed
simultaneously, which created a visual parallel between the two production areas. A triangulation of images was also made possible if a participant looked through the Lorca dressing area from Play Without a Title (shown in Figure 3.4), where the actress applied make-up and consulted her script, straight through to the Rough for Theatre II desks (and beyond to other production areas). I would like to consider aspects of performer movement that conditioned the participants’ spectatorship in this situation.
I have shown how SPACE (direct or flexible) and TIME (sustained or quick) can protract or condense action for the spectator. These ‘compounds of effort’ have been shown to affect the participants’ physical experience of FBF, and I will suggest here that the differentiation of WEIGHT was extremely valuable. A good example of this would be a performer transitioning from a light compound (e.g. Glide) to a heavy compound (e.g. Press). While participants more readily notice TIME and SPACE visually, the attitude of WEIGHT often feels somatically different in performance and invites an alternative form of participation. Moving alongside a performer in a Glide (light, direct and sustained) as s/he moves into a Press (strong, direct, sustained) alters the compound of effort, but it may not be immediately obvious how this has occurred. The heaviness that descends upon the performance of action was compelling when dealing with material objects. Laban would consider this transition in terms of gravity, where: ‘the person whose bodily energy is lacking seems to enjoy his weightiness and to relax happily in being immersed in the general gravity of nature’ (in McCaw, 2011: 225). We used WEIGHT as a physical force that could be enacted when the ensemble manipulated material objects on set. We defined this as the extent to which the performers were ‘immersed in the general gravity’ of the archive.
This was most apparent in a state of character transition when I could observe the corporeal lightness of performers ‘dabbing’ or ‘gliding’ towards a fragment. However, once they had completed the transition towards the fragment, they sometimes could be seen to submit to the ‘gravity’ of the specific production area and its objects. For example, one performer abandoned the materials in the Lorca dressing area from Play Without a Title and focused upon the objects of the desks from Rough for Theatre II. As this performer made their character transition from Lorca’s director (in Play Without a Title) to Beckett’s bureaucrat (in Rough for Theatre II), the movement shifted from a Press to a Dab. Furthermore, in the liminal state of a transition (where light becomes strong and vice versa), I observed participants move into spaces vacated by performers so they could interact with the material objects that had just been set down by the ensemble.
Just as Littlewood had planned to achieve in her Fun Palace, FBF aimed for performance that would produce differentiated meanings through the participants’ enhanced interaction with material objects. Nomi Everall’s FBF design clearly shows how material objects were arranged within production areas (see CD-Rom). In comparison, Price’s design details ‘scientific gadgetry… learning machines… laboratories…’ (Holdsworth, 2011: 213) in a ‘science playground’ that collapses boundaries between art/science, work/play and public/private. While the FBF
installation did not directly reference Price’s architectural designs, they both encouraged similar patterns of movement, where different effort attitudes would enable varied participatory play with material objects. While we cannot know precisely how WEIGHT would have been used in the Fun Palace, there are clues in Littlewood’s writing and her subsequent practice with young people. Her ability to apply Laban’s ‘efforts’ to theatre practice, and then to apply that to community interventionism, demonstrates at least one evolution of Laban’s ‘efforts’ in performance practice. In our experiments, WEIGHT was expressed by performer responses to the strong gravitational pull of objects, scenery
and character, while it could be released through the disengagement from this force through lighter movement. The impact of this upon our performers was an atmospheric and forceful change in the bodily dynamics (like a plane landing suddenly or a
rollercoaster gaining speed), which signaled the beginning of a character transition. In summary, the WEIGHT of movement was a third-dimension that combined with TIME and SPACE in order to promote permeable action.
iv. FLOW (overview)
Figure 3.5: FBF (2012) [See FBF video (silent) at 19m00s on CD-Rom]
This sub-section will take a holistic view of FLOW during these experiments. As we have seen, the differentiations of SPACE (direct or flexible), TIME (sustained or quick) and WEIGHT (strong or light) produced ‘compounds of effort’ that encouraged participatory play through experimental movement. For Laban:
The three effort-attitudes towards the time factor, weight factor and space factor do not, however, cover all the basic phenomena observable. Persons do not move either suddenly or deliberately, weakly or forcefully, flexibly or directly only. There exists another factor, flow, which can be observed in people’s movements, which together with the three factors mentioned above might give us a basis for a full account of effort phenomena. (Laban in McCaw, 2011: 226–7)
I will draw together the temporal, spatial and forceful attitudes in relation to ‘the flow factor’. I have shown that FBF responded to Laban’s challenge that: ‘space is a superabundance of simultaneous movements’ (in McCaw, 2011: 182). This allowed audience members to un/consciously experiment through FLOW (bound or free) within the installation. The ensemble moved between flexible and direct uses of SPACE, but mainly worked within bound FLOW during the performance. This was especially apparent during rehearsed action though there were opportunities for participants to experiment with free FLOW during the character transitions. For example, the
performer in the foreground of Figure 3.5 is shown to be undertaking a direct character transition from Spectator in Lorca’s Play without a Title to Hippolytus in Kane’s Phaedra’s Love. His scored and bound FLOW could be opened up into to free FLOW if
participants chose to interact with him.
I have already suggested that these gaps in the performance event can be understood as being permeable. The fluctuation between bound and free FLOW of movement allowed TIME, WEIGHT and SPACE to shift dynamically during the performance. These moments of permeability are best understood in terms of FLOW: ‘which can be free or bound, whatever velocity, space extension or force the movements might have’ (Laban in McCaw, 2011: 227). Where the participants followed an individual performer during a character transition they were bound by the rhythm of rehearsed action. Where they followed a character into a new production area, they were freer to
‘indulge in’ (Laban’s term) the FLOW of improvised action. Where the participants indulged their own movements around the space, choosing whichever fragments to interact with, they were momentarily in free FLOW as described by Laban:
People who indulge in flow find pleasure in the unrestricted freedom of fluency, without necessarily giving much attention to the various shades of the time, the weight and the space development of the movement. Movements with free flow cannot be easily interrupted or suddenly stopped; it takes time until the moving person gains the necessary control over the flow to stop. Those persons who bind their flow will be able to stop at any moment.
(Laban in McCaw, 2011: 227)
This possibility of a completely free pathway through the performance event was a radical action adopted by very few participants. Most adopted a bound FLOW by following rehearsed or improvised performance (observing the action as drama). In this sense, most audience members ‘struggled against’ rather than ‘indulged in’ FLOW in performance. Laban’s distinction ‘struggle/indulge’ is a particularly useful binary formulation for reflecting upon the participants’ movement. Sometimes they seemed to be struggling against the character transitions or even the fragments themselves. The deliberate sensory overload within the installation was an important aspect of this
struggle, as there was no permanent focal point, only a selection of distributed fragments, creating a tension between the archive (that which is retrievable materially) and the repertoire (that which must be re-performed).
Figure 3.6: Post-FBF event (2012)
This indulgence in, or struggle against, the FLOW of theatrical performance was accentuated by a final event in which an invited audience returned to the installation to participate in a play reading (see Figure 3.6). This opportunity enabled the archive to remain open to new activities (e.g. a group reading of Crave by Sarah Kane) to mark Fail Better’s tenth anniversary as a theatre company. The Kane Estate had given special permission for this reading to take place, and the network of bodies that appear in the photograph above show technicians, academics, practitioners, clinicians and students. While a play reading may seem a particularly conservative way of marking this moment in the company’s evolution, the collaborative way in which it was done is worth emphasis. The four Crave characters (A, B, C and M) were shared collectively, sub-dividing the assembled participants into four groups, and each group was allocated a space in the installation. Observing the audience interactions in this final stage of the event, and in the absence of differentiated performers, the participants appeared to display more freedom within the space and achieved higher levels of permeability.
Figure 3.6 shows this final act of collaboration in order to explore the space as a venue where readings and public events could take place. Before we dismantled the installation and returned the venue to its default empty space, we wanted to explore a temporary community within the installation. This instance of community, exemplifies